Bloody Roar

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Tap into the animal inside you in Hudson's first PlayStation fighter

By IGN Staff

Fighters have been conspicuously absent on the PlayStation as of late. Early 1997 brought us Dynasty Warriors and Soul Edge, but other than that what have we had? Vs. and Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi? No thank you. Thankfully, Sony has picked up Hudson's first PSX fighter Bloody Roar for US release and it should bring some relief to fighter-starved gamers.

Originally shown at E3 under the name Beastorizer, Bloody Roar is a 3D polygonal fighter. Although it may look like Tekken, the play style is closer to Sega's arcade fighters Virtua Fighter and Fighting Vipers (indeed, Bloody Roar even has Viper's signature fences). Moves are accomplished with a minimum of buttons -- one punch, one kick, and hold back to block.

The gimmick in Roar is that each of the fighters can turn into a certain humanoid beast, like a rabbit or gorilla. When your beast gauge reaches a certain point, fighters can transform and perform moves not possible when in human form. Also, health restores when you're prowling around as a beast. Get hit one too many times, though, and you're back to a human.

Bloody Roar also has a Rave button, which kicks your beast-enhanced fighter into overdrive. The character can now move faster and perform combos not possible before. Again, the Rave mode only lasts as long as you don't get hit.

Backgrounds in Bloody Roar look great, and are completely 3D with animated elements. The fences are a nice touch as well. If a character gets pinned against the wall and receives enough damage, the fence will break, leaving him vulnerable for a ring out.

Bloody Roar also has a ton of options, from the inclusion of ring fences to a watch mode. You can even pick from normal, big head, and kid modes in the Japanese version of the game. It is unknown whether these options will make it to the US, though.

Bloody Roar could get gamers excited about fighters again. It's no Tekken 3, but it should do the trick until Namco gets around to releasing its next big fighter.